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Hobby Lobby Ruling a Narrow Win for Freedom

Today’s much anticipated Supreme Court decision on the case of Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. was expected to have broad implications for the application of the Affordable Care Act vis a vis the Constitution. Can the government dictate what kinds of insurance employers are required to provide, or should individuals be free to enter into any contracts they choose?

Now that the 5-4 decision has been made public, there is both cause for celebration, and grave disappointment among those of us who were hoping for a broad ruling in favor of individual liberty.

Justices Alito, Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, and Thomas joined in the opinion that the federal government could not force Hobby Lobby to pay for contraception coverage for its employees. While this is the correct ruling, it largely comes for the wrong reasons and misses a broader point that would have set an important precedent for future cases.

The majority opinion, authored by Justice Alito, chose to attack the problem from the standpoint of an existing law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, rather than attack the root of the issue on a constitutional basis. The core issue is not, in fact, one of religious freedom, but falls under the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of association, and by extension the freedom to enter into voluntary contracts.

Having already made its decision on the basis of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, however, the Court saw no need to further pursue these kind of constitutional arguments. At the conclusion of his opinion, Justice Alito wrote: “The contraceptive mandate, as applied to closely held corporations, violates RFRA. Our decision on that statutory question makes it unnecessary to reach the First Amendment claim.”

It is not exactly surprising that the Court would refrain from issuing a broader ruling that would have had extensive implications for other federal laws, but it is disappointing. The freedom of contract is abridged in innumerable ways by federal laws, from the minimum wage, to labor union protections, to the other mandates within the Affordable Care Act. It is high time that we evaluate in detail whether individuals should be allowed to negotiate with one another within the context of a private business arrangement, or if the government must insert itself into these arrangements when it is not wanted.

The current ruling narrowly exempts certain kinds of organizations from certain kinds of mandates, but it remains unclear why these sorts of protections should not be extended equally to all organizations, as well as to private citizens acting in their capacity as employees or entrepreneurs.

To be sure, the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case is a victory for freedom, but it is a small one that will have little practical application. There remains far more devastating mandates within ObamaCare’s thousands of pages of regulations that need to be stricken down as well. For now, we will have to content ourselves with these sorts of piecemeal rulings that chip into the government’s authority one small bite at a time.

... I believe calling this a "Victory for Freedom" is a very shallow, albeit slippery claim: Simply put, an employer took away a choice that its employees could have made based on their own personal or religious beliefs. Simply put- its not exactly "freedom" per say...

Regulatory agencies have entered the space of copyright law and have tipped the balance of the intellectual property system. Now, it is somehow unclear that agency regulations designed to protect health, safety, and the environment have absolutely nothing to do with copyright law. As with many threats to the balance of intellectual property, Section 1201 is responsible for tipping the scale.

In a blow to Internet freedom, a federal appeals court has given a green light to the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Open Internet Order, a plan to impose net neutrality rules on the Internet. Most disturbingly, the ruling yesterday by a 3-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit affirmed the basis for the Order, the FCC's determination that it can apply utility-style regulations – intended for telephone companies under the Communications Act of 1934 – to land-based and wireless Internet service providers (ISP). In one of the most egregious instances of overreaching by federal agencies under the Obama Administration, the FCC used the determination to grant itself sweeping power to regulate the Internet, opening the door to a plethora of burdensome Internet regulations.

This week, the House will consider a bill that would stop the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from collecting identifying information about donors to tax-exempt organizations. The IRS, in repeatedly using tax disclosures to create political targets, has prompted a chilling effect on First Amendment rights and political free speech.

Perhaps the cocktails preceding yesterday's welcome dinner at the American Constitution Society's annual convention are to blame, but when Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren addressed the dinner, they appeared to be suffering from memory problems. As they spoke about the Senate's handling of President Obama's judicial nominees and Donald Trump's remarks concerning a Mexican-American judge, their memory lapses were too numerous to discuss in a single post. But here are several examples:

Given the harassment and everyday burdens that federal bureaucrats subject small businesses and families to, it seems obvious that decisions could be challenged by the basic process of judicial review. This right, however, was apparently not entirely evident.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously in favor of property owners in a decision that weakens the EPA’s authority under the Clean Water Act. The ruling in United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., Inc gives landowners and businesses the right to go to court when federal regulators trample their rights to property and due process.

FreedomWorks today thanked Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) for declining to meet with President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee and supporting the position of its community of grassroots conservative activists. FreedomWorks believes that meetings with the nominee plays into the hands of the White House and opens the door to hearings and votes.